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User blog:CuteLunaMoon/The hunt in Y'veltel
In the lit-less corner of Saint Laura street, a hallowing, desperate cry of a woman echoes the dark, fetid-smelling alley, followed by the wet sound of blood splatter the dirty walls and the cracking sound of bone being snapped and flesh being torn from ribs. Sirena the Maddie was killed, again, in that dirty and dark corner, and by that one-eyed Blood-starved beast, which I call Jacky. Jacky tears out her left thigh and hungrily digging his jaws into her belly. Blood and guts spilling everywhere. Jacky always has this terrible table manner. From the top of the bell tower, I slowly watch the beast and wait for my chance. That's not new to me. It's full-moon tonight and I was late to come to her rescue again, and again, what I was after was a fed Blood-starved beast to hunt. This is perhaps, her sixty-fourth death, or is it sixty fifths? Hard to remember. But the first time she was dead, it was under my blade. That very first time, I rescued her, fed her, sent her to a safe room, and in her descend to beasthood, she slaughtered everyone there, every single one, including the children. The second, I sent her to a secluded saferoom with wolfbane Incense to ward off the beast, and to my sadness, I found her bite off her tongue and die, after self-inflicting many wounds. Another time, when I tried to stop her, she stabbed me. And another time, I tried giving her some medicine to lower her beasthood, but it was in vain. Sirena revealed herself to be a murderous psychopath and butchered everyone I had saved. From that on, I called her Sirena the Maddie and every time I dream, I gave her a cold shoulder and let Jacky, the one-eyed Blood-starved Beast have his way with her before I strike him down. From what I learned recently, she had slaughtered a family who was kind enough to shelter her before my first dream, thus making its un-reservable. Perhaps it's better this way. Descend from my hundred-feet-high hiding place, I land directly on Jacky and smash his head it with my steely war hammer. Like always, his ugly body cushions my fall, partly protecting me from the damage. My landing assault was quick and devastating, and like every time, caved Jacky's skull in and killed him off instantly. Uncord a blood vial, I quench my thirst and to relieve the pain in my aching feet. Unintelligently, I watch the dangling eye cluster on the sky that is watching me back. it's full-moon tonight and all the evil are at full sway. This makes me feel uneasy. On full moon nights like this, like what had happened in the cursed city of Yharnam, the beast underneath the skin of men is unchained and the werewolves rule the streets of Y'veltel. Huntsmen were dispatched by the church to combat the beastly scourge but slowly, they were deemed to succumb to the cursed themselves and turned into the very thing they hunt. The citizens were instructed to arm to the teeth, barricaded their house, and try to ignore the cry of their neighbor who was unlucky enough to have a beast break through their door. I lit my Bell Lantern and idly drag Jacky towards Martyr Ludwig Square and sit down by the tentacle-infested water fountain. After a short rest and a hasty supper of two teeth-denting hard tacks and a foul-smelling blutwurst, I check my pocket watch. Half past three and thirty-five seconds. "They will be here in exactly ten minute and twenty-five seconds so I was chewing a little longer this time" I whisper to myself while idly stroking a tentacle with a stick. It squirms and writhes weakly at the stimuli, then grabs the stick and retreats back to the black water with a small splash. To me, these little eldritch terrors are quite harmless. However, unseen to the denizens of this layer, they would sometimes grab and devour a bird or a dog which quench their thirst at the fountain. I pay the tentacles one last thought and find it's better to set up the traps for my main prey. Ten minutes left. Enough time to set up two strip wires and throw out a bag of caltrops, soaked in Jacky's oozing, poisonous blood. I also uncord a slime urn and pour it all over the metal spikes. This super sticky slime was harvested from Arcane Slugs, sick creatures in the tomb of the Great One Thalamus. When I finish laying all the caltrops in its position, the prey has come. A group of twenty-five torch-and-pitchfork huntsmen, too deformed to be called human, led by two no-less bestial hunters, show up near the gun shop at the East corner of the Square. Pretending not seeing them, I start butchering Jacky's corpse. On the cloud, those hateful eye cluster still watching, follows my every movement. " Beast! A foul beast!" A huntsman, with ghastly, twist face cries out and point at me, without knowing his words are more fit on him and his friend than it was on me. The huntsmen run towards me and like always, get stripped by the wires I have set up early right into the poisoned caltrops. Several huntsmen, who were unlucky enough to be stripped, helplessly try to remove the caltrops while shouting and cursing the other to stop the attack. The halt of their advancing buys me enough time to crank up my repeater crossbow, which starts to rotate its drum magazine and rapidly shoot throw bolts at the soon-to-be-werewolf huntsmen. In mere seconds, I empty the crossbow's drum magazine and mow down two dozens huntsmen, who were stopped in their track by the sticky glue and poison spikes. The last time I also killed them this way. Much quicker than melee weapons. Their leader, the two bestial hunters, with acute beast senses, were more aware of the traps and were not caught in it. Yet, they didn't warn the huntsmen - their subordinate. The two hunters start circling me, brandish their Saw-like weapons and Guns. I gently put the out-of-ammo crossbow down and quickly grab my steely spiked shield, which I carry by my back. Like always, the hunter on my right, who I dubbed 'Righty' lunges in for a first strike. I don't remember all dreams but normally I would block him with my hammer and bashed 'Lefty' with my shield. This time I'm tired of my own fights and dash aside to narrowly dodge his Saw instead. With a swift swing, I smash 'Righty' ribcage with my hammer. 'Lefty' shoots me several times, hungry to revenge his friend. But I 'm faster and able to dodge the scatter shots and struck him down with a hammer to his head. The arid air stinks of blood and beast. Like always, they could not defeat me. Next dream, I will give them more chance. Without hesitance, I use the defeated hunter's cape to wipe away the blood on the hammerhead. I really like this war hammer. I took it from a Sumerian undead warrior hundreds of year ago and it had been through thick and thin with me ever since. This decorated war hammer, although not a fancy trick weapon, was practical and very good at caving armor and skull in alike. It's also the closest thing I have for a friend in this unending nightmare. I start to recollect my crossbow bolts and loot the bodies. Although these rather crude, hand-made bolts are a dime a dozen, I still have many names on my list tonight and it's a long way back to Hunter's Refuge. About twenty bolts' heads were bent when they hit the wall or a hard surface, but the loot was worth it: I found sixty shining silver coins in a least-transformed huntsman purse. Normally, the huntsmen of Y'veltel would throw away silver coins since it burns their werewolf skin. Due to this unique property, to beast hunters and Y'veltel citizens, silver is more valuable than gold. Picking up my Repeater Compound Crossbow from the ground, I unlock the bolt-receiving mechanism and remove the empty drum magazine, and replace it with a full one. Gently lay the crossbow against the eye-filled wall, I start repeatedly pushing and pulling a small piston to pump more air into the crossbow's compressed air chamber. A masterpiece work of the fame powderkeg, my magazine-fed crossbow use compress air, through a clockwork mechanism too complex for me to understand, to shoot bolts with speed nearly on par with the Gatling gun. Although the crossbow bolts lack penetrating power, it makes up for its utility and hundred rounds magazine. I have a drum magazine filled with silver tipped bolts to hunt savage, inhuman beast, another was dipped in Arcane Phantasm's slime to quickly dispose of the Sumerian tomb guards, another was dipped in all kind of venomous poison I know to halt the regenerating power of lesser Great One Medulla and I also have bolts infused with pyromancy allow them to explode on impact... Powerful and versatile as it is, the Repeater Crossbow also has its cons: it costs me an arm and a leg to acquire and maintain one. The metal bowstring must be replaced frequently or it would snap, the reload mechanism must be oiled daily, the air chamber needs to be manually filled after several usages and even the drum magazine must be manually loaded... After fully reloading my ranged weapon, I start climbing the nearest house to travel on the weather-worn, decaying roof, which is agape here and there. Although quite unsafe, It's much faster traveling this way. Once I reach the rooftop, a familiar, nightmarish landscape shows up before my many eyes. In the eyes of the ignorant denizens of this realm, they only see buildings, towers, and far-away mountain and the sky but through the eyes I robbed from a young Amygdala, I see mountain of flesh, tentacles, and eyes stand and idly move on the horizon while flying eyeballs with tentacle appendage sail through the sky. Here and there, seeping through the cracks of the damaged houses and the partially collapsed tower of the church, a lonely, flesh-like appendage slowly slithers and draws in, dragging a stray beast or an unlucky huntsman along the way. And now, it's hard to tell whether that was a man or a beast. And on the tentacle-infested sky, an ever-watching moon-like Great Eye never stops looking at me, following my every move. A dread feeling invades my head as I think even the ground below is full of tentacles. Is this realm a twisted manifestation of a Great One's stomach? I had tried to come up with many theories but failed to come to a conclusion as this nightmare churls and squirms unendingly. After my descending from the Umbra planar, things like memory and thoughts become fuzzy and cloudy. Walking past the western wall of the Autumn Palace, I was bathed in the light of hundreds of festival lanterns. In a vulgar display of unbridled hedonism, the corrupted nobles of Y'veltel, heavily guarded in their palace, are throwing the wildest party in the realm. These fools, with the gifts of immortality from the Outer Gods, have ruled Y'veltel in hundreds of years, through various dream cycles and foolishly addressed themselves as living gods, soon, they started to fattening themselves on forbidden flesh and blood of man to prolong their youth and engaging in various ritualistic orgies and torture to satisfy their time-dull, perverted desires. In truth, these follies are all but the spawn in the various appendages of the eldritch monsters. And when the hall door is thrown open, the desert, in its most degenerated form, arrives: a gilded handcart full of fresh guts and innards of human children. In the luxury palace, the nobles are feasting on the decadent dessert like savage monsters, unaware of the suffering of their people, unaware of the true nature of the very soil they tread, and unaware of the fact that their guards' throats have been slit open and their palace has been set afire by me. Half four. A little later than the last dream. But just like their corrupted ruler, the denizens of Y'veltel are unaware of the true nature of this realm, they are still living, breeding, dying, and seeking the eldritch gods to be transcended into kins of the cosmos, ironically the favorite food of these eldritch monster. Human and kins alike, are destined to be devoured once their population and psyche power reach its peak. Ironically, the scourge of beast, which turns human into simple-minded, savage beasts and threatens to wipe out humanity, seems to be the only thing that slows down the eldritch assimilation process and prolong their pitiful existence. Was the scourge of beast itself a form of natural defense against the Outer Gods and their servants? Or beast is the true nature of man? I could only guess. It doesn't take long 'til the fire dies out, after having consumed all the twisted, corrupted, flesh-hungry beast in the facade of noble men an women. I pay their charred corpses no mind and walk to the money chamber. Having stripped the Y'veltel denizens of their coins and blood, the nobles have gathered a fortune here. Heaps of gold and silver coins and strings of pearl, collections of all sort scatter the room. There are more gold than silver in this room, the Y'veltel nobles must have tried to get rid of their silver, for, silver can burn the skin of the twisted souls. I grab the remaining silver coins and pour into all of my pockets 'til they are full. The deeper I go inside the room, the more grotesque the morbid collection grows: mummified corpses of priests, once-beautiful women and children joined by hundreds of jars of preserved human organs and fetus. Like the fate of their owner, the treasure chamber was set aflame. Let the fire cleanse this filth from Y'veltel and from my mind. I check my pocket watch again. Seven past ten. So I still have at least an hour and thirty minutes before my next prey arrives, and with this newfound silver, perhaps I could spend it somewhere. Sane Y'veltel citizens would never open their doors on the night of the hunt. They know full well the horror of it. But there're still some folks who take the risk. Climbing past the Church of Saint Owen and several buildings towards the abandoned harbor, I descend down an enormous gaping atop a warehouse and soon find the chaps I was looking for: a group of sane beast hunters and mercenaries sitting and chatting near a big bonfire. I've known these folks and this particular place for ages. This place is called Hunter's Camp, where one could find food, drinks and anything for beast hunting business. Two guards see me and nod, which I politely return nodding. I'm a rather usual face here. " A pound of hardtack and jerky like usual?" A fat and grizzled hunter, who wear the Butcher attire and a blood-soaked apron, asks me. I don't know his name. No one knows, and no one bothers asking what kind of jerky he sells. But like usual, I nod and hand over six shining silver coins. The fat butcher grab one, give it a bite and mumble something to himself before handing the goods over to me. These meager, gruesome food though quite terrible, will keep me going for this long hunt. How I miss the tasty, delicious-smelling cookies the Doll once made for me. Hunter's Refuge is still a long way to go. Stopping by a blood-soup vendor and buy a smoking-hot bowl for myself, I settle on a small rock and start eating the viscous soup. " Hey lad, nice bow-gun you got there. 'Shame if some blood-drunk hunter takes it. How about trading it for my shotgun? " A young church hunter who's eating nearby spots my Repeater Crossbow and bluntly suggest. His companion chuckles. I dub this guy "Land Pirate Captain". His group consists mostly of rogue hunters, but quite good in covering their crime, so they are still allowed in Hunter's Camp. " Not gonna happen," I refuse coldly while helping myself with a big chunk of gamey blood cake. The "Land Pirate" exchange look and still chuckle. " Don't be so stern, man. How about this? Our olde left flanker broke his leg last hunt, God bless him, and we have a vacant now. Care to join us?" The captain says while spying on my strange equipment and hunter tools. " Not interested" I gobble down the last bit of parsley and look away. " Yer will regret this... This night is long, ya know." The captain barks a threat, and he means it. Finishing the meager meal, I trot down along the walkway of the once-famous opera center, now abandoned to weed and stray cats. Darkness slowly creeps over the building as a thick black cloud fly by and block the moon. I look up to the tentacled sky and find that the eye clusters are blinking and looking toward Lower Y'veltel. Strange, in my last dream, they don't look that way. In fact, they haven't repeated themselves at all dream cycles. But now it's not the time to think of them. I come to this haunted opera house to hunt a large beast - who I dubbed "blood bag" for its blood and marrow. For this particular prey, I set up a quite simple trap: a large chunk of meat laced with odor-less poison. Traditionally, hunters shy away from the use of poison, but I have been hunting too long on my own, and start to experimenting unorthodox hunting methods. I simply just wait for seven minute and the hungry beast arrive, grabs the meat and devour it whole. Then, I stalk it to its lair, while keep checking my pocket watch to count the time the toxic would take effect. Then, when the time comes, I jump out form my cover and shoot it repeatedly with silver-tipped bolts. The beast fights back, but then the poison effect kicks in and weakens it severely. At this point, I simply put it down with a precise war hammer swing to the head. I had been using poison on Blood Bag seven times, and it all worked. Perhaps, next cycle, I'll fight him honestly. Traveling past the statue of a worm-like Great One, I lunge myself at a dangling tentacle cluster, sprouted somewhere from the cloud above and I find my most sought-after preys - the League of Selanzar'tha Planar. They are waiting for me. They know I would, and will always come to slay them. They just don't know where I would strike from. This dangling tentacle cluster, while quite grossly to grab on, is totally passive and is invisible to their eyes, so I have time to observe them and make up a plan. Amidst the deformed hunter stand a corpse of an Amygdala Great One, it skull was split, chiseled and a Mensis controlling mechanism was installed inside, allow the kin-like hunter Bane to control the corpse. Hiding on top of a butcher shop is a gigantic dread Beast that wields an enormous hunter's axe. It's no doubt Arthur- a hunter from the western land. The Huntress that wears a funny headdress and rides a Scource-beast like a steed and wields katana is Yuna, a huntress from eastern land. Aside from the unusual folks, they have gathered a dozen more strange-looking church hunters. I smile to myself. I have taught them well. " Over there, the cursed hunter"Suddenly, a Huntress, maybe named Alice, with an enormous goggle headgear shout and direct her arcane pistol at me. This was rather surprising, the last time I dreamed, I was nigh invisible to them. I smile to myself again. Yes, they have learned. I jump in mid-air just before the dangling tentacles cluster I previously grab on was blasted to smithereens with bullets, cannon balls, and arcane projectiles. Using my Vileblood power, I glide throw the night sky and narrowly avoid some buzzing arcane projectiles while letting some bullets bouncing off my thick breastplate before descending on top of an abandoned tower. I dash, run and duck all the way down to the base of the tower while exchanging shots with the hunting party. I count six to seven hunters was incapacitated by my exploding bolts. At the entrance of the tower, Arthur, the beastly hunter breaks in and exchange blows with me. Just before I could bash aside his Hunter Axe, he gives me a nasty bite on the hand. " Got you! Ha ha ha... Blah! What's this?" He takes a step back snarls and spits out my poisonous chunk of flesh. My tainted blood obviously makes him dizzy as he staggers to his feet, swaying a little. " A true poisonous snake" He snarls again while retreating, attempting to use an Antidote. But I don't let that happen, I relentlessly assault him with my hammer, which he clumsily avoid, taking a few hits in the process. Lucky for him, two more hunters barge in from a nearby window, buying Arthur enough time to drink an Antidote. I exchange blows with the newcomers but just after a few hits, quickly dispose of them. " No! Amy and Charles! Die! Die! Die!" Arther lunges at me slashing his claw and emitting a shower of blue spark from his Dark Beast hide. I dodge a few first strikes but fail to hit him as well. So I intentionally take a hit, to grab this speedy foe by the hand and coldly hammer his skull agape with my hammer. Just as Arthur falls, a volley of cannon balls tear through the tower walls and almost demolish the building, I'm lucky enough to jump out of the window just in time. Trembling, heavy breathing and sweating like a swine, I laugh out loud. They have improved their tactic from the last time. This is truly a fruitful hunt. I can feel the thrill of this hunt. I have to take down that cannon before it can reload. Holding my shield high to deflect the incoming rifle rounds and arcane bolts, I sprint towards a clearing. While hiding amongst the ruins seem to be a safer choice against a cannon, in the last cycle, it proved that staying in the clearing was the better option. In the last dream, I almost get myself killed because of the flying debris and collapsing platform created when the cannoneer bombarded my shelter. I return fire with their shooters while following every motion of the cannoneer while bullets and arcane bolts chipping away metal shards and protective wards from my tower shield. Once the cannoneer has finished reloading, I unsling my shoulder-mounted cannon and shoot directly into the opposing cannon's muzzle and effectively destroy it. The blast also takes out a number of their shooter, which is a relief for me. " Advance. Don't give him time to reload his cannon." Shouts Bane, the kin-human crossbreed hunter who controls the corpse of an Amydagala - leader of this hunting party. Two dozens of hunters or more sprint up at me and fight. thanks to my superior speed and skill, I was able to fend them off. I exchange blow with Yuna and she was able to bash my damaged shield aside, only to be roasted by the pyromancy I conjure up. With a twist of my muscle, I turn my right hand into a cluster of tentacles, which I can extend several feet at will to flail my hammer at a shocked hunter and almost instantly smash his head. Holding my spiked shield and sprint at full speed, I shield charge right into a church bowman squad and trample them and soon, feel bone crashing against the spike of the shield and skull bursting under my feet. WHAM! A Kirk Hammer lands just a few centimeters away from me, thanks to my dexterity, I was able to use Old Hunter Bone to boost my speed and narrowly avoid that attack. With another hammer flailing swing, I take out another hunter from the enemy side and manage to throw his Rifle Spear impaling one sniper on the rooftop. One by one, I kill almost half of the melee fighters. I narrowly dodge the blades of a serrated saw but unwittingly get bashed in th face by a morning star. Blood oozes in my gums. " I struck him" the attacker shout in eagerness but soon his smile turns into an expression of terror as I hammer his head in. Despite their number, they are light years away from my fighting experience and could not match the speed of my altered body. " Shoot him. Shoot him dead!" Shouts an irritated Bane, after losing two-thirds of his melee attackers. " But our men are in the way" A shooter stammers before being cut short by his superior. " I don't care. Just shoot" And the rest of the hunters open fire and throw their arcane spells at me, while also annihilating the remaining of their melee forces in the process. Bullets and hard light projectiles whistle around me and several of them bounce off my breastplate, leaving dents and sizzle black spots where they hit. At this rate, the protective ward I erected on this armor will soon wear. Releasing an arcane light wall, a forgotten spell found in the deep, forgotten layer of the dungeon, I reflect the spells back to the casters. However, I was hit several times in the process. "Very well". I think to myself. "Next time, I'll improve my resistance to arcane". With most of his forces devastated, Bane furiously directs his dead Amygdala steed to grabs rocks and debris and even corpses to throw at me, which I dodge easily. Sidestepping to avoid a deadly slam from the controlled corpse, I unleash a fury of exploding light beams from left eyes, completely destroy the controller cage and killing a couple of shooters in the process as well. A heavily wounded Bane escapes from the destroyed cage, tries to crawl away from me while desperately shooting his pistol at me to no effect: the small caliber bullets either bounce off or completely miss. Focus my thought on the vast emptiness of space I unleash another fury of light and finish him off. " What... are you?" A wounded Church doctor gasps in her dying breath. " Take a good look for yourself," I say and reveal what is hidden under my bandana. She screams and wails her limbs helplessly as if to shield his vision from the horror I reveal. I show her my grafted flesh of an unnamed Great One from Umbra Planar. It's always oozing and shifting while forming and deforming various nightmarish limbs and organ. Although now a part of my body, it gives me dread just to think of its assimilation. I only graft a piece of an ear to replace mine and now it has spread half of my face. Yet, it boosts my power and I, to some extent can control it so I still let it stay there to see what might happen next. But the mere sight of this monstrosity of a body part seems too much to bear to the frail mind of the woman so she snaps. Blood burst from her head and stream down from her orifices. These hunters were formerly rogue hunters under Bane Balthazar, a former blood minister of the church. He discovered that, by imbibing the blood of the hunters, he would gain power much faster than imbibing beast blood. So, Bane formed a gang with crooks and hunters to hunt beast and other hunters alike. Soon they became infamous for their greed, cruelty and blood-thirsty hunting methods. I fought and defeat them again and again in my previous dreams and soon learn all the tricks of this hunting party. So, when I got bored with them, I sought to boost their strength to have bigger fish to fry. Long story short, at every new dream cycle, I'd give them guidance in term of hand notes, under the name Blessed Moon to lead these greedy hunters into easy preys, mostly other warped hunters, dread kins and savage beasts. I also left Bane's group clues to improve their gears and fighting tactic. These vicious cycles have repeated around twenty times or so. Catching a breath, I sit down onto the dirty cobblestone street for a minute or two before collecting my bolts and loot the defeated. On the insidious sky, the eyes are still watching. What are they, I don't know. Not yet. But they give me a dread feeling. And the fact that they seem to remember every dream cycle startle me. They could be body parts of an ancient Great One, forgotten and unseen by most. Try to put my gaze off the eldritch horrors, I walk toward my damaged shield. The poor object was damaged beyond repair by rifle rounds (probably armor-piercing) and arcane particles so I have no other choice but to discard it. I start looting the corpses of anything of value and write down their equipment list into my handbook. There are new faces amongst the band of Balthazaar and they wield a number of unrecognizable hunter tools and kin body parts. These details will help me a lot when a new dream cycle begins. While I'm busing sawing away a strange leg, on the weather-worn, decrepit street, several heavily deformed half-beast, half-man creatures have emerged from the lit-less alley and dark crevices in groups to feast on the bodies I left behind. Most of them keep a distance from me and move out of my way when I come to loot another corpse. I met these packs several dream cycles ago, they are too weak to hunt and compete for food with other larger beasts so they opt to scavenge leftover cadavers. The packs soon settle themselves and hungrily gnawing away the corpses. Only one frail, almost skin and bone beast, probably a stray, unable to find himself a corpse, reluctantly tries to come near me for a mangled dead body, but as soon as he spots my glance, gives up and runs to a dark corner. Perhaps he decides it's not worth the risk. After a hasted looting, I rip out a hand and throw towards the stray, malnourished beast and walk away. On the corner top of I'lilathom tower, a band of blood cultists is gathering and performing some of their blasphemous rituals to their hideous outer gods. Driven half-mad by the glimpse of the eldritch truth, the lunatic scholars of some forgotten colleges abandoned their pseudo-science research and worshiped the Kins of cosmos in return of unknown, horrible promises. Some cultists notice my presence and recklessly charge. Instead of killing them, I just run past them to their surprise. I don't need to kill them. These pitiful fools, in the previous dream cycle, was devoured by their very Gods, because to the lesser eldritch monsters, all flesh is the same. A quick glance to my clock tells me it's half ten. I'm thirty-three-minute later than the last cycle. Stopping by the ivy-infested wall of Y'veltel Great Library to catch a breath, I make a quick sketch and a mediocre note on things happened in this cycle. Trotting down the street of South Y'veltel, through the dead bushes and lonely houses which grows thicker and less decrepit toward Central Y'veltel, I spot another group of a hunter. These are sane ones, lead by a former militant named George. They are still sane hunters, so they are not in my list... Oh, I almost forget, I wrote it in the back. " He's here. That cursed one-eyed hunter is here" One hunter point at my direction and alarms the group. Bullets fly past me as I duck behind my cover and return fire... Now shield-less and almost out of ammo, what should I do to beat these hunters? A smile creeps along my harden face. And so, the nightly hunt continues...